A Biography of Charles Grandison Finney

By G. Frederick Wright

A Biography of Charles Grandison Finney is a classic biographyof the famous Presbyterian minister.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781537800462

Book preview

A BIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

..................

G. Frederick Wright

LACONIA PUBLISHERS

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

Copyright © 2016 by G. Frederick Wright

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Biography

Preface

Chapter 1 CONVERSION AND THEOLOGICAL PREPARATION.

Chapter 2 EARLY REVIVAL LABORS.

Chapter 3 THE NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

Chapter 4 SUBSEQUENT EVANGELISTIC LABORS.

Chapter 5 REMOVAL TO OBERLIN.

Chapter 6 FINNEY AS AN EDUCATOR.

Chapter 7 THE THEOLOGIAN AND PHILOSOPHER.

Chapter 8 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Chapter 9 CONCLUSION.

A BIOGRAPHY

..................

OF

..................

CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

..................

By

G. Frederick Wright, D.D., LL.D.

Professor in Oberlin Theological Seminary, OHIO

1891

PREFACE

..................

I COUNT MYSELF FORTUNATE IN the subject of this Memoir. The life of President Finney fell in times well adapted for the development of the remarkable natural abilities with which he was endowed. He was made for an active career, and abundant opportunities for action were opened before him by Providence at every step. He came suddenly to the notice of the Christian public, but his ardor never showed signs of abatement. His success, though constant, seemed always to be a surprise to himself. While he had his full share of conflict, and attained the full tale of years allotted by the Psalmist, his spirit mellowed with age, and his end was peace. If the story of his life and work fails either to interest or to instruct the reader, the fault is certainly in the writer, and not in the subject he has undertaken to present.

G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.

OBERLIN, OHIO, March 21, 1891.

CHAPTER 1 CONVERSION AND THEOLOGICAL PREPARATION.

..................

IN THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF Warren, Litchfield County, Connecticut, Josiah Finney appears as the name of one of the earliest settlers, and we are told that the organization of the Congregational Church of the town in 1756 was effected at his residence, and that he purchased and gave to the ecclesiastical society the ground upon which the first meeting-house was built. Josiah Finney’s wife was Sarah Curtiss, a sister of Major Eleazer Curtiss of Revolutionary fame. Their first child, Sylvester, who was born March 15, 1759, became a soldier in the Revolutionary army, and in 1779 married Rebecca Rice of Kent. The seventh child of this couple, born in Warren, August 29, 1792, was made to reflect the literary fashion of his time by receiving the baptismal name of Charles Grandison, after one of the characters of Richardson’s creation.

Josiah Finney, the grandfather of Charles, was, (as the genealogical tables pretty surely indicate) the grandson of John Finney, second, who was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1638, and whose father (John), together with his mother and brother Robert, was among the early settlers of Plymouth. John Finney, second, the probable grandfather of Josiah and great-great-grandfather of Charles G., married in 1664 Mary Rogers, a granddaughter of Thomas Rogers, who came over in the Mayflower. Through his mother, Rebecca Rice, Charles was connected with a large and prominent family of that name appearing in the early records of New London and Norwich, Connecticut. Through his grandmother, Sarah Curtiss, he was probably descended in 1641 from Francis Curtiss of Plymouth, or perhaps from William Curtiss of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a brother of the wife of John Eliot. The Curtiss family was originally from Nasing, England. Thus it appears that, like so many other prominent men of later times, the subject of our biography was descended from some of the best families of the earliest New England emigration.

When Charles was about two years old, his parents, following the prevalent tide of emigration, removed to the wilderness of Central New York, and found a temporary resting-place for the family at Brothertown, Oneida County, but soon sought a permanent home in Hanover, now Kirkland, then a part Paris. Here they remained, amid the privations of pioneer life common to those days, until Charles was sixteen years old. It was the days of the stage-coach and post-horse. The Erie Canal with its marvelous transformations had not even been projected. The country was covered with a dense forest in which clearings were made by slow and painful effort. There were but few churches and fewer ministers; so that Finney in his boyhood heard very little preaching, and that mostly by uneducated and ignorant men, whose mistakes in grammar so impressed themselves upon his mind that they were the subjects of merriment to him to his dying day. Books likewise were few. Yet, true to the New England instincts, this most advanced wave of emigration bore with it the schoolhouse, and young Finney was a regular attendant upon the summer and winter district schools, taught by persons who had received creditable education in New England. About 1808 the family moved to Henderson, Jefferson County, on the shore of Lake Ontario, not far from Sackett’s Harbor. Here for a portion of the time Charles was engaged in teaching a district school, but there was no improvement in his religious opportunities.

Quite naturally he was led in due time to go back for further education to his native town in Connecticut, where we find him in 1812, attending the high school, or academy, of the place. When he expressed a desire to take a college course, his teacher, though a graduate of Yale College, opposed the plan, assuring him that at the rate of progress he was making he could by private study pass over the whole curriculum in two years. While at Warren, Finney came under the influence of the stated ordinances of the church for the first time, and listened to the preaching of Rev. Peter Starr, who was pastor there from 1771 to 1822. But the regulation style of preaching in those days was not particularly attractive to the aspiring youth, and he seems to have been unfavorably impressed by it.

In pursuance of the advice of his teacher to content himself with going over the curriculum of the college course privately, Finney arranged to go South to teach and carry on his studies; but for two years taught school in New Jersey. Here there was no preaching, except in the German language, and, as that was unintelligible to him, he was again shut off from positive religious influences. After a four years’ absence from home, he returned for a visit, intending still to complete his plan of further teaching and private study at the South. But in view of his mother’s ill health, he was led to remain within reach of her, and so began the study of law in the office of Benjamin Wright, in the town of Adams, a few miles away; there in due time he was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the work of his profession.

The Presbyterian pastor in Adams was Rev. George W. Gale, a young man who had recently graduated from Princeton, and who was thoroughly imbued with the form of Calvinistic theology there taught. During this period, Finney for the first time lived within reach of a regular prayer-meeting, one being held in the church near his office. This he made it his practice to attend as often as business permitted. He was also the leader of the choir, and his influence over the young people was very marked, and, from all accounts, very prejudicial to the church; for he was a most unsparing critic of both the practice and the profession of its members. Mr. Gale had many private but apparently fruitless discussions with Finney respecting the truths of religion, but at last became so completely discouraged that, when some one proposed in church meeting to make Finney a subject of prayer, Mr. Gale remarked that it was of no use; that he did not believe that Finney would ever be converted, since he had already sinned against so much light that his heart was hopelessly hardened; adding, also, that the choir was so much under Finney’s influence that it was doubtful if they could be converted while their leader remained in Adams.

Thus matters went on until the autumn of 1821, when Finney was twenty-nine years of age. Up to about this time he had not owned a copy of the Bible. But the frequent quotation of the Mosaic Institutes by his law authorities had led him recently to purchase one as a work of reference, and while thus using it he had become deeply interested in the volume. Under these combined influences he was becoming very restless, and was led to feel that he needed a great change in his inward state to prepare him for the happiness of heaven. According to his own account, also, he was much perplexed at this time by the apparent failure of the church to obtain answers to their prayers. Still, after a short struggle, he became fully convinced that the Bible was indeed the true Word of God,(1) and its solemn commands pressed upon his conscience with ever-increasing weight.

Finney’s conversion belongs to the same class as that of the apostle Paul, in which the inward change of character is necessarily connected with a complete transformation of the outward conduct. The salient points of it can easily be given. Fully to interpret it, however, requires a consideration of his whole subsequent career. The difficulty of such an interpretation is also somewhat increased by the fact that, in the Memoirs written by himself, Finney has accompanied his narrative by numerous doctrinal disquisitions, in which those familiar with the controversies of the time readily detect the result of subsequent years of reflection interjecting their later theology in the narrative of early experience. While, however, it is extremely improbable that the theological system defended in his later life burst upon his mind at the outset in such complete form as his own narrative would imply, it cannot be doubted that the deep struggles of mind through which he was initiated into the Christian life exerted a marked influence not only upon all his subsequent practical labors for the conversion of men, but ultimately upon the formulation of his theological system. It is therefore important to detail at considerable length the events connected with and closely following his conversion.

The convictions of religious duty which had been slowly ripening in Finney’s mind for two or three years culminated in a crisis of unusual violence. Being brought face to face with the question whether he was willing to surrender all his worldly plans and submit his will without reservation to Christ, he became more and more agitated, and, to suppress his rising emotion, resorted to the favorite device of avoiding his pastor and other religious people as much as possible. As a natural result, at the end of two or three days he became extremely nervous, and was depressed with the presentiment that he was soon to die,-which, in his present state of mind, he felt, would surely involve the eternal loss of his soul. In the midst of these forebodings he made various resolutions to serve God, and to make himself fit in character for the kingdom of heaven. But for some reason all these were ineffectual, and brought no peace to his mind.

From his own account it would seem that the primary reason for this darkness and depression of feeling was that his resolutions were superficial, and that he had not really humbled himself in the presence of God, but was seeking a righteousness of his own, based upon works, and not upon divine grace. The idea of trusting God for the forgiveness of his sins had not yet dawned upon his mind, or at any rate not with such clearness that he was brought to act upon the thought in the entire self-surrender of his soul. But at this point the gospel scheme of salvation, as a gift of God bestowed upon all believers through the atonement of Christ, came before him with great clearness. In Finney’s own opinion, this vision of gospel truth was in a large degree the result of the direct operation of the Holy Spirit upon his mind. But probably he would not deny that in its essential elements the material of the truth had already filtered into his mind through natural agencies. The main facts of the gospel, though in unattractive form, had without doubt been brought within his survey by the faithful pastors in Warren and in Adams, and perhaps even by those unlettered itinerants to whom he had listened in earlier days; while. his own resistance to the manifold claims of duty had wrought up to the highest degree within him that sense of the need of divine grace which is the starting-point of all true religious faith. Upon these elements of truth the illuminating Spirit now descended, as in a lightning stroke, and helped him to see the broad and reasonable basis upon which the Christian rests his hope of life and immortality. In the busy street, and in the light of day, there came to him a vision of Christ, transfixing him to the spot where he stood, and arresting his whole train of worldly thought. For a considerable time he stood motionless where the vision met him, until at last he yielded to the summons, and resolved that he would accept Christ that day or die in the attempt.

Still it would appear that he had not yet fully surrendered his pride and given up his self-righteousness; for the severest struggle of all was yet before him. Instead of making an immediate surrender to God, he had only resolved that he would surrender some time during the day. To carry out this purpose of the future, he turned his back upon his office, and sought the seclusion of a neighboring forest, which he had been accustomed to frequent for pleasure and recreation. Although people had often seen him wending his way toward this spot, so that there was really nothing in this to excite inquiry, he was now strangely impressed with the feeling that everybody was observing him, and that every one could divine the object of his movements. This thought so touched his pride that, to use his own words, he skulked along under the fence, to keep out of sight, and when he reached the woods went to the farthest extremity of them, so as to avoid all possibility of being discovered. Here in a tangle of fallen trees, which was made to serve as a closet, he began the proposed operation of giving his heart to God.

Some will think it an instructive commentary upon his later views of regeneration, in which he holds that sinners are bound to make to themselves new hearts, that now, at this crisis in his own experience, Finney was, for the time, unable to carry out the resolutions with which he entered the forest. When he opened his lips to pray, he found that he had nothing to say to God. Even his heart, he says, refused to pray. Every rustling of the leaves attracted his attention, and startled him with the apprehension that somebody had found him out, and was coming to interrupt him.

If called upon, however, to explain the depressing experience, he would doubtless have said that the real difficulty at that time was that he had not completely humbled himself before God, and surrendered his will. When, a little later, this was really done, the darkness passed away. But an additional horror then came over him in view of the apparent fact that he had broken his promise to God, since he had promised to give Him his whole heart before he returned to his office. But he was still without feeling, and without the formation of any effective resolution. With overwhelming force, the apprehension was borne in upon his mind that he had perhaps committed the unpardonable sin.

All this was necessary to bring him down to the point of complete humility before God, and he came to see that the feelings which had prompted him to be so careful in avoiding the presence of his fellow-men arose from pride of heart, and that it was supremely wicked in him to be ashamed to confess before men his sense of sin and need, and he cried at the top of his voice that he would not leave the place in which he had prostrated himself, though all the men on earth and all the devils in hell should surround him. At this juncture, the passage of Scripture was suggested to him, which runs: Then shall ye go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. Then shall ye seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Finney confidently thought that he had never read this passage. This is doubtless a mistake. But at any rate, at that supreme moment of spiritual agony, he recognized in these words the voice of God; and one of those visions of divine mercy which ever characterized his later life, and gave such effectiveness to his preaching, burst upon his soul in its resplendent glory. He found himself no longer trusting alone in the efficacy of his own resolution, but in the supreme mercy of a Heavenly Father. Under the impulse of this experience, his memory was so quickened that a long list of promises from the Bible came thronging in upon his mind, and, to use his own words, he seized hold of them, appropriated them, and fastened upon them with the grasp of a drowning man.

His lips were now unsealed, and he continued some time in audible prayer. How long he was thus engaged, he was unable to tell. Nor could he recall the exact moment at which he rose from his knees and started to return to his office; but could only remember that, before he was fairly aware of it, he was on his feet with a light heart, and was brushing through the leaves and bushes toward the open field. The real crisis in his experience is doubtless found in the sentence which involuntarily fell from his lips as he started on his return, If I am ever converted, I will preach the gospel. The question whether or not he was converted did not at that time, however, arise for consideration.

On returning to the town, he found that the whole forenoon had passed away. But he had no appetite for dinner, and, instead of going to his boarding-house, went to his office, where in the quiet of the noontide hour he took down his bass viol, and began to play and sing some of the hymns with which in his impenitence he had so often led the worship of the congregation. Every note brought tears to his eyes. And, after making several ineffectual attempts to suppress his feelings, he put aside his music, and devoted himself during the afternoon to readjusting the books and furniture of the office, having little conversation with any of the various persons who came in.

In the evening he had the office to himself, and, after building a fire in the open fireplace, he retired to the back room to renew the devotions which in the earlier part of the day he had commenced at his familiar haunt in the forest. Here it seemed to him that he had a vision of the Lord, and that Christ met him face to face. So complete was the illusion, that it was some time before it was dispelled. It seemed to him, he says, that he saw Christ as he would see any other man, and that beneath his benignant gaze he was melted to tears, and he wept aloud like a child. On being aroused from this rapt vision, he returned to his seat by the fireplace in the main room of the office, and as he sat down by the fire he received what he describes as a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. This was an experience for which he was not looking, and of which he did not remember ever to have heard before. It seemed to him as if there was a positive force like electricity entering and penetrating his whole system. He wept aloud with joy and love, and, to use his own words, literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of his heart. So overwhelming were these waves of feeling, that he cried out, Lord, I cannot bear any more; I shall die if these continue.

This train of experiences was interrupted late in the evening by a visit from a member of the choir, who was alarmed at Finney’s loud weeping, and supposed that he was suffering from pain, but was somewhat confused at Finney’s reply that he was not in pain, but so happy that he could not live.

Notwithstanding this exalted experience and these transports of joy, Finney retired to his bed without definite assurance in his own mind that his sins had been forgiven, or that he had been fully accepted by God, and he passed a nearly sleepless night. But when he arose in the morning and the sun was pouring its clear rays into his room, these became to him an emblem of the brighter light that had arisen upon his soul, and there was a repetition of the scene of the previous evening. He wept aloud for joy, and in this second baptism received a gentle reproof for having doubted the readiness of God to have mercy upon him. He now saw that the sweet relief from condemnation, which had come to his mind at the supreme moment of decision upon the previous forenoon, was closely connected with the divine act of justification, and that the peace which he had since enjoyed was that which God had provided for sinners through the gracious sufferings of Christ. He felt that his sins were blotted out from God’s book of remembrance, and that, by a divine act, his guilt had been removed.

From this time on, a single purpose dominated Finney’s mind. He felt that God wanted him to preach the gospel, and that he must begin immediately. He had been retained to attend a suit that morning as attorney, but when his client came to remind him of the case, Finney said that he had enlisted in the cause of Christ, that he had a retainer from the Lord Jesus to plead his cause, and that some one else must attend to the suit. But instead of seeking another lawyer, the man, who was a deacon of the church, immediately settled his suit, and betook himself to prayer and more direct labor for the salvation of men. Finney went out at once from his office to converse upon religion with his friends and associates wherever he might meet them. During the day, he spoke with many persons, nearly every one of whom received lasting impressions, and entered at once upon an active Christian life. At evening, without appointment, the people gathered by general consent at the place where they usually met for prayer. The house was packed, but no one seemed ready to open the meeting. Without waiting to be called upon, Finney proceeded to tell them the story of his conversion. No sooner had he closed his narrative than Rev. Mr. Gale arose and confessed that he had sinned in limiting the power of God, and in discouraging the people from prayer. He, like many others that day, among them a prominent lawyer, had said, when the rumor of Finney’s conversion became current, that it could not be